Need help running a good GH tournament

[Reakt00r]

There's this LAN-party in Holland called The Reality, and there's gonna be a Guitar Hero tournament too. I'm (probably) going to host it, so I need some pointers. I'd appreciate any advice. I already read the Announcement topic, but it doesn't state anything I need to know.

I'm using an Xbox 360 with GH5 that has the World Tour and Smash Hits import, the free World Tour DLC and Dueling Banjos, Camel's Night Out and Bloodmeat. We will probably play on a 26" monitor that supports Full HD.

A few questions I had:

1. It needs to be excessible and fair for players of all difficulties. In the games that came before GH5, if someone played on Expert and someone else on Hard, the scoring for the player on Hard was modified so that they got more points. This made it extremely unfair, someone that got 95% on a song on Expert would get beaten by someone that got like 97% on Hard. Is this fixed yet?

2. Since GH5 can have 4 players at a time, should I use this to speed the tournament up or let people play more? Or would it cause too much chaos?

3. Should I still use Pro Face-Off or should I throw in the new modes too somewhere?

4. Which songs should I pick? Should I randomize by using the card method as stated in the Announcement, or should I just pick by hand, making the songs more difficult the closer you get to the finals? Also, which song should I use for the finals? Is Scatterbrain the hardest or should I use Bloodmeat, Camel's Night Out or Dueling Banjos?

Thanks in advance guys ;D

[Reakt00r]

There's this LAN-party in Holland called The Reality, and there's gonna be a Guitar Hero tournament too. I'm (probably) going to host it, so I need some pointers. I'd appreciate any advice. I already read the Announcement topic, but it doesn't state anything I need to know.

I'm using an Xbox 360 with GH5 that has the World Tour and Smash Hits import, the free World Tour DLC and Dueling Banjos, Camel's Night Out and Bloodmeat. We will probably play on a 26" monitor that supports Full HD.

A few questions I had:

1. It needs to be excessible and fair for players of all difficulties. In the games that came before GH5, if someone played on Expert and someone else on Hard, the scoring for the player on Hard was modified so that they got more points. This made it extremely unfair, someone that got 95% on a song on Expert would get beaten by someone that got like 97% on Hard. Is this fixed yet?

2. Since GH5 can have 4 players at a time, should I use this to speed the tournament up or let people play more? Or would it cause too much chaos?

3. Should I still use Pro Face-Off or should I throw in the new modes too somewhere?

4. Which songs should I pick? Should I randomize by using the card method as stated in the Announcement, or should I just pick by hand, making the songs more difficult the closer you get to the finals? Also, which song should I use for the finals? Is Scatterbrain the hardest or should I use Bloodmeat, Camel's Night Out or Dueling Banjos?

Thanks in advance guys ;D

[ZEFFER13]

1. Im not sure if they fixed this yet. Some tournaments divide the participants by difficulty and give the best in every difficulty a prize, others make everyone play at a difficulty (normally Hard or Expert) so the charts are the same. If you don't mind drifting away from brackets then have everyone pick a song and difficulty they want and whoever gets the highest score wins. There is less of a competition feel to it but its fair to all playing levels in the matter that a Medium player isnt forced onto Expert.

2. Playing with 4 players is fine but it quickens pace and more people get screwed. Example: If you have 4 people play an easy song then the person that has the best path for it is most likely going to win even though the 4 players could all FC it and are equal skill wise. If it's divided into 1v1 sessions then only 1 person can really get screwed out of a bad song choice.

3. I don't see any problem with the new modes other than playing Elimination which would blow with 2 people playing. Pro Face-off is best for competitions though since score basically equals skill.

4. If you are playing then randomize it or have someone else pick the songs. The best way is to have pre-picked songs for each round of a bracket starting with shorter easier song then moving up to longer harder songs. (No one wants to listen to DYFLWD 10 times in the first round) The final song, or the hardest, is probly Scatterbrain (21st Schizoid Man isn't that interesting for most of the song so it loses some of its value there) though Dueling Banjos is pretty rough also. But if you advertise it as a GH5 tournament then I'd stick with the on disc songs.

5. I tried my best to contribute. I'll try to dig up the tournament rules for the Navy Pier tournament from a while ago. I had no complaints with their set other than I am an Expert player and I had to play on Hard. Look back here for an edit with a link.

EDIT: I tried my link I found and it was removed from the site since the tournament was from so long ago. Basically though they had a qualifying period where you choose a song of your choice to play and the top 8 scores would be in the final bracket. Then a basic bracket was used to eliminated players and the songs were choosen randomly by the host.
_________________

[ZEFFER13]

1. Im not sure if they fixed this yet. Some tournaments divide the participants by difficulty and give the best in every difficulty a prize, others make everyone play at a difficulty (normally Hard or Expert) so the charts are the same. If you don't mind drifting away from brackets then have everyone pick a song and difficulty they want and whoever gets the highest score wins. There is less of a competition feel to it but its fair to all playing levels in the matter that a Medium player isnt forced onto Expert.

2. Playing with 4 players is fine but it quickens pace and more people get screwed. Example: If you have 4 people play an easy song then the person that has the best path for it is most likely going to win even though the 4 players could all FC it and are equal skill wise. If it's divided into 1v1 sessions then only 1 person can really get screwed out of a bad song choice.

3. I don't see any problem with the new modes other than playing Elimination which would blow with 2 people playing. Pro Face-off is best for competitions though since score basically equals skill.

4. If you are playing then randomize it or have someone else pick the songs. The best way is to have pre-picked songs for each round of a bracket starting with shorter easier song then moving up to longer harder songs. (No one wants to listen to DYFLWD 10 times in the first round) The final song, or the hardest, is probly Scatterbrain (21st Schizoid Man isn't that interesting for most of the song so it loses some of its value there) though Dueling Banjos is pretty rough also. But if you advertise it as a GH5 tournament then I'd stick with the on disc songs.

5. I tried my best to contribute. I'll try to dig up the tournament rules for the Navy Pier tournament from a while ago. I had no complaints with their set other than I am an Expert player and I had to play on Hard. Look back here for an edit with a link.

EDIT: I tried my link I found and it was removed from the site since the tournament was from so long ago. Basically though they had a qualifying period where you choose a song of your choice to play and the top 8 scores would be in the final bracket. Then a basic bracket was used to eliminated players and the songs were choosen randomly by the host.
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[massi4h]

If you have XBL set up you can actually have 8 guitars all at once, I dunno if you can do that with 2 consoles though. The score balancing of difficulties is still in iirc so everyone should be on the same difficulty for fairness.

Pro Face Off is the best for tournaments, but you could always try "Perfection" which is more based on hitting the notes rather than SP.

I think it's a good idea to do multiple players at once.
Treat it like something like Mario Kart where you do a series of songs and rank people based on their placings, you could run pools like this and it would be much quicker and gives people more songs per match.

You can always let players pick their own songs, so if you have 4 players at once they can all pick a song and you can grab the winner after those 4 songs were played (or add in some more yourself as well). And if you want a 1v1 final and say best of 5 it's always easy for them to pick 2 songs each then reserve one song you think is hardest for the tiebreaker.

[massi4h]

If you have XBL set up you can actually have 8 guitars all at once, I dunno if you can do that with 2 consoles though. The score balancing of difficulties is still in iirc so everyone should be on the same difficulty for fairness.

Pro Face Off is the best for tournaments, but you could always try "Perfection" which is more based on hitting the notes rather than SP.

I think it's a good idea to do multiple players at once.
Treat it like something like Mario Kart where you do a series of songs and rank people based on their placings, you could run pools like this and it would be much quicker and gives people more songs per match.

You can always let players pick their own songs, so if you have 4 players at once they can all pick a song and you can grab the winner after those 4 songs were played (or add in some more yourself as well). And if you want a 1v1 final and say best of 5 it's always easy for them to pick 2 songs each then reserve one song you think is hardest for the tiebreaker.

[Reakt00r]

Since I do want people of all difficulties to be able to play, would it be a good idea to have set difficulties depending on the round of the tournament?

It would be like:

First Round - Easy
Second Round - Medium
Quarter Finals - Hard
Semi Finals and Finals - Expert

People would be free to pick a difficulty higher than those, but if, for example, you're in the quarter finals, you have to pick AT LEAST Hard, you can't play on Easy or Medium.

Also, I think two songs per match would be ok if we're playing with 4 people at a time. You get points based on place (1st place: 4 points etc.) and if it's a tie after two matches if three or more people are tied we play a sudden death song.

Top two after each match will continue, and the quarter, semi and finals will be 1v1 instead of 1v1v1v1.

Any other tips?

EDIT: Does anyone know if you play multiple songs that there is an option to see overall statistics of the players? As in, who's 1st place overall?

[Reakt00r]

Since I do want people of all difficulties to be able to play, would it be a good idea to have set difficulties depending on the round of the tournament?

It would be like:

First Round - Easy
Second Round - Medium
Quarter Finals - Hard
Semi Finals and Finals - Expert

People would be free to pick a difficulty higher than those, but if, for example, you're in the quarter finals, you have to pick AT LEAST Hard, you can't play on Easy or Medium.

Also, I think two songs per match would be ok if we're playing with 4 people at a time. You get points based on place (1st place: 4 points etc.) and if it's a tie after two matches if three or more people are tied we play a sudden death song.

Top two after each match will continue, and the quarter, semi and finals will be 1v1 instead of 1v1v1v1.

Any other tips?

EDIT: Does anyone know if you play multiple songs that there is an option to see overall statistics of the players? As in, who's 1st place overall?

[massi4h]

Changing difficulty between rounds is one of the biggest things that pisses off players. The best guy could lose to someone who can only play on medium and lots of situations like that come up. If someone can only play on easy or medium it's unfair for them to play on hard if they make it through to the quarter finals. Easiest thing to do is have an expert and medium competition.

[massi4h]

Changing difficulty between rounds is one of the biggest things that pisses off players. The best guy could lose to someone who can only play on medium and lots of situations like that come up. If someone can only play on easy or medium it's unfair for them to play on hard if they make it through to the quarter finals. Easiest thing to do is have an expert and medium competition.

[Reakt00r]

I won't have time for two competitions... Plus, they can play on Easy if they want, it's their own choice. So I need a solution to make it work out... I could up the difficulty to Medium, that would at least skip one difficulty change...

[Reakt00r]

I won't have time for two competitions... Plus, they can play on Easy if they want, it's their own choice. So I need a solution to make it work out... I could up the difficulty to Medium, that would at least skip one difficulty change...